Home Sweet Home

We have finally gotten properly settled into the apartment, so the time has come to write a post about the place. While we have some outdoor space, it's still quite messy from the construction that was done before we moved in. I'll post some pictures of that once the landlord cleans it up and landscapes, but the apartment is ready for photos now.

You enter the apartment through a small foyer. It has a door that leads to a passage to the back yard and a small closet. The closet is entirely filled with our suitcases, so we have a coat tree and shoe rack for storage. We also have a small chest in which we are storing our spare towels and some other odds and ends. We figured that in theory we could sit on that to put on shoes but for some reason it never happens.

To the left of the entryway is the master bedroom. It's actually large, even by American standards. It manages to fit our new bed, our sofa, two nightstands, and one of the wardrobes without feeling cramped. There is also a french door leading out to the back garden, which allows our cats to have elaborate stare-offs against the neighborhood strays. The bed is currently pulled away from the wall due to some water infiltration, but the landlord is working on that. The cats actually love having the sofa in the bedroom, both for napping and chasing games that involve leaping from sofa to bed and back.

Speaking of chasing games...to the right of the entryway is the Hallway of Truth. It's another fantastic place to tear down like a crazy person if you are a quadruped. It is way narrower than any standard-sized American hallway, and a lot of not-that-large furniture (our sofa, for example) is disqualified from the living room thanks to it. Off the hall is a second small bedroom, the bathroom, and the main room.

The second bedroom is currently serving primarily as an office/closet combo. We have the second wardrobe in there, the dresser, a small desk, and two bookshelves. We also set up the drying rack in there on laundry days, as well as our dehumidifier to help that process. It's a fairly crowded space when everything is in action, but it suits our purpose well enough. Once we get internet, I will hook up the computer and start spending some quality time in there.

The bathroom is small but functional. The tiny sink is absurd to shave in, though at least it fills quickly. In the UK all water heaters are tankless, so we do have very good warm water and surprisingly good pressure. We have a weird thing where the water will alternate between too hot and too cold if you turn on both taps, but since I like very hot showers anyway I have just been going full-tilt hot. There isn't much storage, but that's life here.

The main space (the sitting room) serves as open kitchen, living room, and dining room. We've fiddled with the layout a few times, and have finally settled on one we like. The dining table is the one that served me in my first post-college apartment, and has spent much of the time since then stored. It's smallish, but works well for the two of us and affords a nice people-watching post through the front windows. It was another item that needed a bit more dis-assembly than we expected to get into the room.

The kitchen is also smallish, but we are doing alright with it. There are three small sections of counter, so one can usually find a place to prep that is out of the way. It's also somewhat limited on storage, and we expect that we'll find ourselves picking up a portable island from Ikea sooner or later. While it appears to have a lot of cupboards, once you start opening them you soon notice that the largest ones all hide utilities (fridge, boiler for hot water and heat, washing machine.)

Since our sofa didn't fit in the living room, we decided to buy some inexpensive chairs from Ikea. They are a touch larger in the space than we realized, but they do still fit nicely. The coffee table from Chicago didn't quite make the cut, so it's currently huddled in a corner behind the seating, gathering odds and ends. We also got the best TV that one hundred fifty pounds could buy from our local Argos. We can watch DVDs from home via Mary's laptop, and it has a built-in player for the ones from here, so that's our entertainment worked out. There is also limited free programming via Freeview, but that's another post.

All in all, the place has quickly grown to be cozy and a decent home base. While there are many things that we would change about it, it really does feel like our space, and coming back to it feels like returning home.